1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a maintenance system of an ink jet recording device which acquires a job relevant to image recording, and sequentially executes the job using an ink jet head.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an ink jet recording device, the occurrence of a fault in an ink jet head gives rise to the occurrence of an image quality defect in an image to be recorded. The fault phenomenon of the ink jet head causing an image quality defect is mainly non-ejection and a change in an ejection state (such as a defective ejection direction, a change in ejection rate, or a change in the amount of ejection). The occurrence of non-ejection or a change in an ejection state in specific nozzles gives rise to the occurrence of an image quality defect such as streaks or density unevenness in an image to be recorded. Therefore, in the ink jet recording device, it is important to maintain the ejection state of the ink jet head very satisfactorily. For this reason, in the ink jet recording device, the maintenance (processing of preventing and recovering from a fault) of the ink jet head is performed periodically.
JP2012-011736A proposes a method of selecting an optimal pattern from a plurality of maintenance patterns on the basis of the operating state of an ink jet recording device, and maintaining an ink jet head before a job, during the job, and after the job in accordance with the selected maintenance pattern, and a method of analyzing an recorded image on the basis of the result, selecting an optimal pattern from the plurality of maintenance patterns, and maintaining the ink jet head before the job, during the job, and after the job in accordance with the selected maintenance pattern.
In addition, JP1998-315489A (JP-H10-315489A) proposes a method of clocking a time elapsed after the execution of a job in an ink jet recording device that performs recovery processing on an ink jet head between jobs, and performing recovery processing on the ink jet head in a case where a certain period of time or more has elapsed before the next job is executed.